Scholarly Publishing and Academic
Resources Coalition (SPARC)
is a worldwide alliance of research institutions, libraries and
organizations that encourages competition in the scholarly communications
market. SPARC introduces new solutions to scientific journal publishing,
facilitates the use of technology to expand access, and partners with
publishers that bring top-quality, low-cost research to a greater
audience. SPARC strives to return science to scientists.

Social Science Research Network
Social Science Research Network (SSRN) is devoted to the rapid worldwide
dissemination of social science research and is composed of a number of
specialized research networks in each of the social sciences.

ELSSS, the ELectronic Society for Social Scientists
is a not-for-profit
organisation aimed at solving the ever deepening crisis in scholarly and
scientific communication created by the pricing policies of some
commercial publishers that have forced libraries in the developed world to
cut their journal portfolios and to slash their book collection and that
have priced developing and transition economies out of the knowledge loop
altogether.

Review of Economic Theory
[to be launched in the Spring of 2003, aims to be a first-rate theory
journal, with standards comparable to those currently used at the Journal
of Economic Theory. The Review of Economic Theory is endorsed by SPARC
(Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition).]

GAWC - World
Cities
The papers we mount as a Bulletin are 'final products' in that the
authors, in their professional judgement, have considered them ready for
submission... Of course, some may fail to impress referees and be rejected
and nearly all will be revised before publication.... A newly
submitted paper will be designated (A) which may be replaced by subsequent
revised versions designated (B), (C) and so on. Hence readers will be able
to identify updated versions of papers they have previously used.

Tenure
Issues. "This is a web page that contains information on places where
tenure is under attack or serious review."

New UW study grades state's high schools
Survey focuses on performance of freshmen ; Seattle Times,
Nov. 15, 1996; by Marsha King
"A new study by the UW shows for the first time how students from
Washington's high schools perform
in specific subject areas during their first year at the university.
The study also compares the grade-point averages of freshmen from each
high school with the
performance of freshmen as a whole.
The UW produced the study to give high schools more detailed
information about how well their
students perform and to assess the adequacy of students' preparation
for higher education."

Executive Ethics Board lifts ban on de minimis use
SEATTLE, Apr. 13, 1998 - The state Executive Ethics Board voted
unanimously to lift the prohibition on occasional personal use of state
computers by executive branch employees under certain conditions.
The change was filed with the Office of the Code Reviser and will
be effective on April 27, 1998.

Affirmative action in the UW may be dead, but the efforts to bring more
minority students to campus are not,...

UW to pay $950,000 for surgeon to leave;
Seattle Times, Saturday, July 27, 2002,
By Steve Miletich, Seattle Times business reporter
H. Richard Winn, the acclaimed University of Washington neurosurgeon who
pleaded guilty to obstructing a federal investigation, will receive at
least $950,000 and up to $3.7 million for resigning from the university.

The future of higher education: New realities for universities,
Seattle Times, Sunday, June 14, 1998, by Wallace D. Loh,
Special to The Times
"At the cusp of a new century, American higher education faces an epochal
transition. New realities are reshaping it and nearly every other societal
institution...".
Wallace D. Loh is director of the governor's Executive Policy Office. The
views expressed here are personal and do not represent those of the
governor. They were presented in the Rembe Endowed Lecture at the
University of Washington Law School on May 21.

UW's slide is about more than money
Seattle Times, Friday, March 20, 1998; by Alfred Runte
"AS president of the University of
Washington, Richard L. McCormick maintains that its erosion, recently
symbolized by the departure of Richard White, is due principally to the
lack of funding...
As usual, that is barely half the story. The deeper, more
troubling problems are not just about "the money." ..."

Richard White's departure a sober warning
for UW Seattle Times,
Friday, March 6, 1998 by Richard L. McCormick
DAVID Brewster's thoughtful column of
Feb. 20
makes clear the loss we will suffer when Professor Richard White
leaves the University of Washington history department next fall for a
new position at Stanford.

White's exit to Stanford says volumes about UW
Seattle Times, Friday, February 20, 1998
by David Brewster
HISTORY professor Richard White,
... has accepted an offer from Stanford... His move
is a terrible loss...
his decision... flows
from serious anxiety about the future of UW.... the UW's "failure to
create an undergraduate culture." White is bothered by the number of
students... who are "not sympathetic to the goals of
higher education, who come in hostile to the university." Enormous
lecture classes, the absence of contact with professors, the rarity of
independent research, UW focus on professional schools all compound the
problem. But the heart of the matter is the state's dubious arrangement
with community colleges. ...White's third factor is the business mentality
.... When Gov. Gary Locke... named a high-level commission to
rethink higher education... he felt
the committee, chaired by business leaders from Weyerhaeuser and
Costco, evidenced "no real.. understanding for the
university..."

Group gives state low marks in history,
geography teaching Seattle Times,
February 23, 1998
by Jolayne Houtz
Washington receives two Fs for the quality of
its academic standards
in history and geography in a new national
survey of learning standards
that found most states' standards lacking in
rigor and clarity.

MIT to offer free course
materials online
Seattle Times, April 05, 2001, by The Associated Press and Chicago
Tribune
CAMBRIDGE, Mass. -- At a time when
online knowledge can be a valuable
commodity, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology
plans to offer nearly all its course materials
on the Internet for free.
The $100 million project aims to make
information from MIT's 2,000 courses
accessible to everyone within 10 years. The Web
site will include lecture notes, course
outlines, reading lists and assignments.

Tech digest:
School rules; Seattle Times
Sunday, April 11, 1999
Two reports out last week warned colleges and
universities to
temper their zeal for the rapidly growing
online-education industry,
saying that effectiveness and impact are
unclear.

New software replaces teacher as
essay grader; Seattle Times,
Monday, October 19, 1998; by Linda Perlstein
The Washington Post
"Rousselin's essay was graded not by his professor, Peter Foltz, but
by the computer program Foltz helped design. The
technology represents one of the first major efforts in the
country that employs computers to evaluate the content of a student's
essay, rather than simply check its spelling, grammar or adherence
to rules of style."

State's higher-ed needs require
creative solutions ; Seattle Times,
Wednesday, August 19, 1998 by Don Carlson,
Guest columnist
AS the chair of the House Higher Education
Committee in the state Legislature, ... I have read with great interest
some recent articles written by
University of Washington professors and others
criticizing the Legislature and Gov. Gary Locke for
"underfunding" higher education. They also expressed concerns about
using computers and other technology to replace traditional
college campuses. I feel it is necessary to respond to these concerns.

Poll: Use technology for college
expansion; Seattle Times,
Sunday, August 2, 1998; by Roberto Sanchez
"...Washingtonians would rather use
technology to
increase access to college than build campuses.
The survey, which was commissioned by Gov. Gary
Locke's 2020 Commission on the Future of Higher Education,
said 92.7 percent of respondents think technology can be used to
open more seats at the state's colleges. By contrast, 61.4 percent
think the state needs to build more campuses to expand access to
college." [2020 Commission Survey
Results]

UW profs fear high tech might supplant
classrooms
Seattle Times, Wednesday, June 10, 1998
by Roberto Sanchez
Worried that the state is buying into a
technological future for higher
education that could come at the expense of
classroom teaching, University of Washington professors have
launched an offensive of their own.

Recent events at two large North American universities signal dramatically
that we have entered a new era in higher education,
one which is rapidly drawing the halls of academe into the age of
automation. In mid-summer the UCLA administration
launched its historic "Instructional Enhancement Initiative" requiring
computer web sites for all of its arts and sciences courses
by the start of the Fall term, the first time that a major university has
made mandatory the use of computer telecommunications
technology in the delivery of higher education.

Faculty Evaluation & Tenure Issues:

Will new commission attack profs'
tenure? Seattle Times,
Tuesday, February 3, 1998 by Roberto Sanchez
"A new gubernatorial commission charged
with
planning the future of public higher education may also raise the
blood pressure of university faculty a few notches."

Easy professors get the best grades in
study
by Roberto Sanchez
Seattle Times, Friday, Dec. 5, 1997
... The university takes those evaluations seriously, ...
using them as a factor to determine
everything from the professor's raises to his or her tenure...
But new research ... suggests
that the current system of evaluations is flawed - and tells a
lot more about how easy a class is, or how easily the professor grades,
than it does about how well he or she does as a teacher.

In fact, according to professors Anthony
Greenwald and Gerald Gillmore, the current system may encourage
instructors to give students light workloads and high grades,
because that will lead to higher marks on the evaluation.

"Instructors get discouraged from doing the
things that are highly demanding because they tend to result in low
ratings," said Greenwald....

Lynne Cheney-Joe Lieberman Group Puts Out a
Blacklist
Published on Thursday, December 13, 2001 in the San Jose Mercury News
by Roberto J. Gonzalez
AN aggressive attack on freedom has been launched upon
America's college campuses. Its perpetrators seek
the elimination of ideas and activities that place Sept.
11 in historical context, or critique the so-called war on
terrorism.

Worried about a commercialized university?
(Week in Germany, February
27, 1998):At the
Darmstadt (Hessen) Polytechnic (Technische Hochschule Darmstadt), the
architecture
department plans to offer its lecture halls as an advertising venue.
During the fifteen
minutes or so it takes for a lecture to begin, students will see
advertising projected onto the
walls much like in movie theaters. The advertising is to begin with
the summer semester in
the generally well attended course “Building Construction III.”
The university explained its decision with increasing financial
difficulties. Despite rising
attendance over ten years, the architecture department has seen its
budget cut by thirty
percent and faces insurmountable hurdles in providing students with
the computers now
used in the study of architecture. Most of the over one hundred firms
contacted by the
university have shown interest in the advertising project, a
university spokesperson said.

Literature:

Castree, N. and M. Sparke, "Professional Geography and the
Corporatization of the University: Experiences, Evaluations and
Engagements," Introduction to a Special Issue of Antipode 32(3),
2000, pp.222-9.